Color is amazing! I have always been awestruck by light and color and how our brains translate color. My connection to color on such a deep level is what drew me to makeup artistry. One of the most integral aspects of effective makeup artistry is color sensitivity: the ability to differentiate between colors and their relationships. Matching foundation undertones, blending appropriate highlighting and contouring shades, and choosing just the right hues to "pop" your natural features are just a few of the important pieces of painting a face that would be near impossible without color sensitivity, not to mention being able to adjust those tones for various lighting, photography, or film needs!
I stumbled across this Online Color Challenge, by X-Rite, a company that specializes in the technology and science of color, and also owns the popular color system Pantone. A series of color swatches with subtle variations ranging between two hues is presented out of order, and you rearrange the swatches so that the gradient between the two colors is correct. At the end, you are given a score between 0 (perfect color acuity) and 99 (low color acuity). I scored a 6.
Now, as someone who not only has spent the last decade making her living off of color acuity, and whose synesthetic brain literally connects color with emotion, I'm pretty happy with a 6...but I'm always curious about the perceptions people around me have of color. My husband is partially colorblind, and I'm constantly asking him to take quizzes like this...he scored a 78 on this one. It used to make me sad that he doesn't see each individual color that makes up my vivid surroundings, as each individual color means something specific and beautiful to me. I am learning more and more though that, while I am incredibly thankful for the gift of an expansive color spectrum, it is a beautiful thing to be able to experience a different color palette.
How do you see the world around you? Do you live in shades of grey, or a technicolored dreamscape, or some where in the middle? No matter how many hue variations you can physically see, take a moment to really look around and you may brighten your view.